B&W Music has been recording many of the best Australian jazz musicians at festivals and concerts. Launched in May, 1996, the B&W label has now produced 19 CDs.

John Buchanan
  

Peter Wolstenholme
In the late 1980s John Buchanan started promoting a series of concerts to reflect the spirit of the early classic jazz and ragtime era. His tightly structured programs featuring this music were presented at jazz festivals, clubs and theatres in Sydney, Canberra and also in Kyneton and Williamstown in Victoria, using the best jazz and ragtime musicians available.

In 1996, John decided it would be good to record these concerts because they produced much more exciting performances than were evident from many studio recordings. Also by then some of the bands he engaged for these concerts had broken up and rarely played together. He then invited Peter Wolstenholme to record a concert in March 1996, featuring the late Tom Baker. The quality was good enough to make a CD, and B&W Music was born.

Buchanan and Wolstenholme turned out to be a magic combination: both were musicians who had played in jazz bands, and had developed a passion for the traditional (or classic) jazz style. They realised that nobody else seemed to be recording or promoting many of Australia’s best jazz musicians. So the B&W Music label’s mission was to stimulate a new awareness of this music and its musicians.

John Buchanan’s forte was in maintaining a strong focus on a particular aspect – often a tribute to a jazz legend – and this shone through in the structure of his concerts. A comprehensive booklet provided for each CD likewise explains the focus for the CD as well as giving details of the recording dates, tunes and musicians.

Peter Wolstenholme’s strength was his ability to use his knowledge as a musician to capture memorable recordings, often from live performances. Also his earlier career as an engineer in industry made it easy for him to get abreast of modern computer techniques for handling the recordings and preparing CDs. So all the critical mixing and mastering is now done in-house by Peter.

John Buchanan developed an early interest in jazz, particularly in the San Francisco revival of the 1940s. In 1997 he wrote the definitive book on the history of the Yerba Buena Jazz Band, Emperor Norton’s Hunch.

Peter Wolstenholme studied classical piano for 8 years, then learned to play by ear and developed an interest in jazz and ragtime. He also had some expertise and interest in live recording since the 1950s. This background was vital when he recorded the concert in 1996 which marked the start of B&W Music. Since then, the equipment and techniques for recording music have been steadily improved. The result has been the successful series of CDs. Peter’s expertise with computer techniques has advanced as the technology itself has advanced, and this now includes software for removing surface noise and restoring music from old recordings

In order to present Australian jazz musicians to a worlwide audience, B&W Music set up this web site, which is kept up to date with comprehensive details of the CDs: tunes, musicians and sound samples of some of the tracks.


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